Best of all, to Brian's mind, after the first sullen period of readjustment he had worked his own salvation and reverted by wholesome instinct to boyhood with its inexhaustible animal vigor, its gaucheries and its boisterous minutes of frolic heretofore denied.

Now save for the hours by the camp fire when he passionately blurted out again and again the tale of his rebellion until Brian knew his life as he knew the weather-lore of the open road, he seemed ever on the verge of laughter.
Brian smiled.

Attuned to the mood he summed up the achievement of his own summer.

The brawn of splendid health and a clear head! For the one he could thank his gypsying; for the other, in a measure, he could thank the boy.
In the lonely hours before he came with his problems there had been solitude less soothing than Brian had expected.

There has been an inclination to smoke and brood and nurse certain sentimental misgivings about Kenny when the fire was low and the owls hooting in the forest.
After, mercifully--for they might have driven him back to sunsets--there had been no time.